Vanderbilt Law Review Volume 5 Issue 4 Issue 4 - June 1952 Article 6 6-1952 The Law of Burial Insurance Charles T. Cady Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr Part of the Insurance Law Commons, and the State and Local Government Law Commons Recommended Citation Charles T. Cady, The Law of Burial Insurance, 5 Vanderbilt Law Review 800 (1952) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol5/iss4/6 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. NOTES THE LAW OF BURIAL INSURANCE I. INTRODUCTION Burial insurance, used in the sense of a risk-shifting device to aid the less fortunate, has existed in the form of friendly societies from time im- memorial. 1 Indeed, it is probable that this noncommercial type was the first form of insurance. There is some evidence that such societies existed in Egypt, 2500 B.C.2 There exists more concrete evidence that they thrived in ancient China, India, Greece and Rome. 3 The Grecian societies, although largely religious and ritualistic, had as their main function the guarantee of a decent burial for their members.4 The existence around A.D. 117-138 of Roman societies, called collegia, is established beyond doubt by the finding of a marble bearing an inscription setting forth the by-laws., Although there is no documentary proof, it is probable that the societies survived the in- vasions and continued to exist in their ancient form until they were revived by the medieval guilds with many attributes of our modern mutual benefit organizations.